- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The pilot of an American Airlines
plane that hijackers crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11 will not be
allowed a military burial at Arlington National Cemetery, a newspaper
reported
on Wednesday.
-
- The Army and the cemetery, the United States' premier
military burial ground, have ruled that Capt. Charles Burlingame III was
not eligible for internment because he was 52 when he died, The Washington
Post reported. According to the cemetery's strict criteria, retired
reservists
must turn 60 before admission to Arlington.
-
- Burlingame landed F-4 Phantom jet fighters on aircraft
carriers for eight years while in the Navy and served in the Naval Reserve
for 17 years. President Bush has said that he and others who died in the
attacks in New York and Washington were victims of war.
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- "My brother was one of thousands who perished on
that day, and we'll never know what happened on that airplane," Debra
Burlingame of Los Angeles told the Post. "But it's not very difficult
to see that he had an active, up-close-and-personal, probably hand-to-hand
confrontation with one or more knife-wielding terrorists.
-
- "It was no different than if he were in combat.
Not only is he a hero, I think he should get the Purple Heart."
-
- The medal would make Burlingame eligible for burial at
Arlington, the paper said.
-
- The FBI has told his widow that Burlingame died of
injuries
sustained before the plane hit the Pentagon, indicating he was killed in
a struggle, according to the Post.
-
- An Army spokesman, Col. Jim Allen, told the newspaper
officials have to abide by Arlington's strict rules because space there
is limited.
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